Tim Green - Exact Revenge

“You’re having trouble?” I say, squeezing the lime into my glass and taking a sip. Another waiter goes by with plates of steaks still sputtering from the grill, leaving a scented trail of seared meat.

Villay leans forward again, grabbing the new drink, whispering. “There should be a law against the jealousy of women. Now that would be jurisprudence. That would be helpful. They’re like cats. Bitter. Unforgiving. Relentless. Goddamn fucking demons.”

“You have a beautiful wife,” I say.

“She sleeps,” he says. “Beautiful, but do you think she feels? Do you think it even affects her? We went to that house… and she sleeps.. . but she caused it all to begin with.”

“Dean,” I say. “You need to rest.”

“Ha!” he shouts, and people turn to stare. Villay leans close again, lowering his voice. “That’s the last thing I need. I need Holmes. I need to write laws that squeeze the hordes into small spaces and cull them like a reaper.”

I leave a hundred-dollar bill on the table and get up.

“Where are you going?” Villay shrieks, licking his lips and hugging himself so hard that he rocks forward.

I look down on him, smile, and say, “You’ve lost your mind, old friend.”

“What friend? Are you giving it to me?” he says loudly, then puts a knuckle in his mouth and clamps down. Those oddly torn pupils widen, then contract.

The maître d’ appears beside me and says, “Is everything all right, sir?”

“Fine,” I say, tossing my napkin down on the seat. “Everything is just right.”

WHEN MY CAR PULLS INTO THE GATE of my Fifth Avenue home, I raise my eyebrows at the sight of Andre’s red Ferrari. My reports on Andre are that he spends every minute with Dani Rangle. She is showing him Manhattan in a big way. They drink rare champagne, eat gold-covered sushi, dance all night, and snort generous amounts of cocaine. Sometimes an expensive call girl will join them to finish things off at his flat.

Against my advice, Allen didn’t give up on Dani entirely and there was a scene at the China Club, where she threw a drink at him and Andre threatened to break his neck. Martin and some other friends dragged Allen out and that was the last of it, but it seemed to fuel the fire between Andre and Dani even more. Still, I know Andre hasn’t run out of money, even though he’s doing a good job trying, so I can’t imagine what would bring him here.

A servant opens my limo door before I can. I straighten the edges of my suit coat and readjust my tie knot as I walk up the broad marble stairs and into the cavernous foyer. Bert is waiting by the stairs, his eyes on the arched doors to the library.

“The dog leg?” I say, angling my head toward the doors.

Bert pinches his lips, nods, and says, “Better than that. Your old friend is with him.”

“Russo?”

“The scarecrow-face himself. Birds of a feather.”

“Where’s the girl?”

Bert shrugs and falls in behind me. I take a deep breath and exhale before opening the door.

Russo is sitting on the couch in front of my desk. Gone is his flap of hair. A shadow of razor stubble extends from his face all around the fringes of his round dome. He is thin and pale, and his shoulders have all but collapsed. He’s dressed in ratty jeans, a Rolling Stones T-shirt, and a black knit cap that pushes those ears out even farther. His Adam’s apple jerks up and down in his neck and his bulging eyes dart back and forth between Andre and me. The insides of his arms are spotted with tiny bruises.

Andre is dressed in pleated navy slacks and a matching silk shirt open at the collar. A heavy chain hangs down to the smooth crease of his chest muscles. He’s treated himself to a Rolex and in his hand is a crystal decanter. He hands Russo a large snifter, fills it with bourbon, and then refills his own.

“Drink?” he asks, raising the decanter.

I sit down behind my desk and say, “No. Have a seat, Prince.”

“Yeah,” he says, half his mouth pulled up in a smile. He throws himself down sideways in a leather chair with his legs over the arm. “I like that. And we’ve got some business to discuss.”

He glares at me until I nod my head.

“My former partner here is down on his luck. So, he naturally sees how things are going for me and he wonders if he can get in on some of the good fortune. I guess you two know each other anyway, right?”

Russo won’t look at me, but he is nodding his head so that his dorsal-fin nose cuts the air. Under his breath, he says, “Yep, that’s Arthur Bell.”

I slip open the top drawer of my desk and wrap my fingers around a Glock 9mm that has been fitted with a silencer. Everything is too close to happening for my plan to be disrupted by these two. I’ve got my in to Frank. Villay is on the edge. Rangle’s financial empire is about to crash. I expected Andre to run off with Rangle’s daughter or at least drag her down into addiction; she is Rangle’s brightest jewel, and that would make his ruin complete. But I can’t be greedy. I’ll have to do without these two.

“You’re a lot of people at once, apparently,” Andre says, grinning at me and raising his glass before taking a swig. “And that’s okay with us. We just want to get paid for the information, same as we would if we sold it to, say, the Post or someone. You’re becoming an important man, Quick Buck-Seth Cole-Arthur Bell-Running Deer. Owning the Jets and all that.”

“I think I have something that will make everyone happy,” I say. “Bert, would you get that small suitcase that I keep in the upstairs vault?”

“The…”

“The brown alligator suitcase,” I say. “In the vault. If you go, you’ll find it.”

Andre sets down his snifter and shifts in his seat. From his waist, he pulls out a jet black Colt.45 and points it at my head.

“Nothing funny, Bert,” he says, curling his lip up away from his teeth. “I’m not here to fuck around.”

“You’ll like what he’s got,” I say, letting go of the Glock and easing back in my chair.

Russo stands up and says, “Andre, we-”

“Sit down! You just sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up. You wanted some payout,” Andre says without taking his eyes off me. “I’m getting it for you. With the money this guy’s got, you sure as fuck don’t need mine.”

Bert returns and sets down the suitcase on the coffee table between Andre and Russo.

“Open it,” Andre tells his partner.

Russo fumbles with the latch and pops it open. His eyes get wide and shiny. He takes a small knife from his pocket, nicks a bag, and touches his finger to the white powder inside. He puts his finger in his mouth, looks at Andre, and says, “Heroin. It’s pure.”

“About five million dollars’ worth,” I say. “A gift from me to you. To help keep your partner from having to sell a story that wouldn’t help any of us.”

“Yeah,” Andre says, nodding his head and getting to his feet. “A gift. We can all still get along. We’re having a good time, you and me, aren’t we, Seth Cole?”

“Things are going very well,” I say.

Russo closes the suitcase. Andre and he back out of the room.

“No hard feelings,” Andre says. “You know I’m working on that guitar.”

“No problem. You two are doing me a favor. Our deal still stands,” I say, and they’re gone.

Bert stands looking at me for a moment, then says, “I thought you were going to kill those snakes.”

“I thought about it,” I say. “But I think this will work even better. I got the heroin from the Russians who run the market. Under the circumstances, I didn’t want to refuse it, and now I’ve put it to good use.”

I pick up the phone and call my contact at Vance International, asking them to put two agents on Andre, twenty-four hours a day.